OpenAI and Microsoft are partnering with Oracle to boost computing power to run ChatGPT. As part of a partnership announced this week, the three companies will work together to enable OpenAI to use the Microsoft Azure AI platform on Oracle's infrastructure.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has made no secret of the fact that the company needs more infrastructure to support its services. He's also in talks to raise billions of dollars for his AI chip venture. In a press release about the Oracle deal this week, he said Oracle's chips “will enable OpenAI to continue to scale.”
To date, OpenAI has relied entirely on Microsoft for its computing needs. In return, Microsoft invested $13 billion for a 49% stake in OpenAI's commercial subsidiary and exclusive rights to commercially license its technology. But as this deal with Oracle makes clear, to meet demand and prevent future ChatGPT outages, OpenAI needs computing that Microsoft alone cannot provide.
Microsoft and OpenAI are apparently sensitive about how the Oracle deal will be perceived. On Wednesday, OpenAI issued a follow-up statement saying that its “strategic cloud relationship with Microsoft remains unchanged” and that the new partnership will “allow OpenAI to take advantage of the Azure AI platform on OCI infrastructure for inference and other needs.” (Inference refers to the act of running AI models in production through applications such as ChatGPT.)
OpenAI also revealed that pre-training of its cutting-edge models “continues to take place on a supercomputer built in partnership with Microsoft.”
